Steam cookers are used in the preparation of food by heating water in a container to produce steam for cooking. Conventional steam cookers available on the market for home use generally employ relatively high wattage electric heaters mounted in the bottom of a container to generate steam for cooking. The heaters employed in known steam cookers of this type generally have not been entirely satisfactory for various reasons.
Heating units which employ a larger heating surface in contact with the water in the container are also known. Such units generally employ a large metal heat sink and heat the entire volume of water to the boiling point before steam cooking can commence. Attempts to reduce this startup time by using heater elements of higher capacity generally result in a higher overshoot temperature which may result in more violent localized boiling action and can result in a shortened life for the heating element.
The conventional steam cookers take about 7 minutes to heat up water from ambient temperature to a boiling point. Therefore, it remains desirable to produce an improved steam cooker that can speed up the time required to heat the water to a boiling point.